


Opening Doors

by TimeLadyoftheSith



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Confessions, Decisions, F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Pete’s World, Smut, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 17:17:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeLadyoftheSith/pseuds/TimeLadyoftheSith
Summary: Being human isn’t exactly easy, especially when he has been a Time Lord so long. Sometimes he just needs to remind himself that he doesn’t have to run anymore. He doesn’t have to hide how he feels about Rose any longer. First, he needs to explain why, and with any luck, she’ll forgive him for leaving her standing alone in her bedroom door.





	Opening Doors

The Doctor stood in the dark hallway of the Tyler Mansion, his single heart pounding out a tattoo in the silence as he stared at the heavy oak door in front of him. Five days he’d been human, Five confusing, thrilling, worrisome, amazing, and tedious days. He was still getting used to things, like sweating, needing sleep every fourteen or so hours, not hearing the TARDIS, having lungs, and the whole one heart thing. He thought he was doing well, though.   
  
Some things he was still having a hard time remembering was that he was allowed to love Rose. He had to keep reminding himself that he could touch her how he always longed to, could kiss her whenever she looked at him just so, and that he didn’t have to pull back or run whenever things began to get heated. He was more human than Time Lord now. They could be intimate, finally, fully, and yet he had still let his instincts keep him from letting her pull him into her room three hours before. The rejected and despondent look on her reflection in the hall mirror had haunted him in the dark confines of his own room, making sleep impossible.   
  
Three hours before he had heard this door shut, and now the whole house was so dark. Three long, torturous hours of him reminding himself that this was his life now, the one adventure he’d longed to give her but hadn’t been able to. Except, now he could, and as he raised his knuckles to knock, he heard it. Just past the door was the soft sniffles of an upset Rose, combined with the carpet muffled thuds of her pacing. Steeling himself, the Doctor didn’t knock, he opened the door and stepped into the lamplit room. “Rose, can we talk?” He watched as she froze halfway between her bed and the window, her pajamas rustling as she turned. When he took in her reddened cheeks and nose, his single heart ached.   
  
“Don’t you ever kno-“   
  
“I love you.” He didn’t let her finish the snappy, exasperated sniffle, and shut the door behind him before crossing the room and pulling her into his arms. Rose resisted, and he made to release her, afraid he’d somehow messed everything up. Then she threw her arms around him and hugged him as tightly as she had after Kropp Tor. “I really, really, do love you. I’m just-“   
  
“Scared?” Rose lifted her face from his bare chest, and the Doctor looked down, again in awe over how well she knew him. “Me too. I keep thinkin’ this is all a dream. That ‘m gonna wake up, ‘nd I’ll have imagined it.”   
  
“Oh, Rose.” The Doctor pulled back to take her hand and lead her to the massive four poster bed. “Me too, but, it’s more than that.” It hadn’t escaped his notice that she hadn’t said the three words back, yet, but she was upset. She was scared. He knew how she felt, and acknowledged how the tables had turned. “I want this, want us. I just, sometimes, I forget that I can have it. That I’m human now, that I won’t hurt you.” A tear leaked down her cheek, and he realized he had hurt her, inside, by running away. “I mean, if we, well, I won’t hurt you when we, um.” Finally, Rose giggled, and he felt his cheeks flush as she looked down at their joined hands. “I was always afraid I’d hurt you, before, when I wasn’t human.”   
  
“Doctor, you’d never hurt me. I saw you naked, remember, when I changed you after you regenerated, ‘nd then that time on Marulous six when we got arrested ‘nd they stripped us down for a search.” Rose was blushing now, and as always the sight made his hearts, no heart, do a little acrobatic routine. “We were, um, compatible then. It wouldn’t have hurt.”   
  
“Not physically, no.” The Doctor freed one of his hands to cup her chin and lift her eyes to his, trying to find a way to explain it. “Mentally. Rose, when I was a full Time Lord, I could have hurt you mentally. When we, um, I mean, my people, when we-“   
  
“Dance.” Those amber eyes sparkled up at him in amusement and adoration. They were so intoxicating that the Doctor lost his train of thought for a moment.   
  
“Make love.” He watched as her lips popped open and heard her audible intake of breath. “We instinctively want to make a mental connection too. We don’t have to, but it takes control to stop, and I was afraid I’d lose control, that I’d be unable to keep from linking with you, and in losing control, I’d blow your mind.” Another giggle from his Rose, and the Doctor had to laugh softly too. “I don’t mean in a good way. I mean, it’d be the equivalent of dropping a grand piano on your mind.”   
  
“So you wanted to, before, when you weren’t human?”   
  
“Stars above, you have no idea.” The Doctor was finally relieved to admit it out loud. “You have no idea how many times I stood outside your door, talking myself down, afraid if I did, afraid if I managed to do it without losing control, that the universe would steal you away from me.”   
  
“And then it did.” Rose sniffled again, and he was clinging to a grav clamp, screaming as she was sucked away. He tried to shove the image away, to not lose himself in it. “But then I told the universe to fuck off, ‘nd I came back.”   
  
“Yeah you did.” Her proud words didn’t so much the memory away as it beat it into submission with a bat. “And now we’re together, and I have to remember that. I forget, sometimes, that I’m human.” He pulled her closer, wrapping his Rose in his arms as she crawled into his lap and kissed his shoulder. “That you chose me. That-“   
  
“I love you.” Those three little words eased every worry and doubt in his mind, and Rose ran a thumb along his jaw. “You know that, righ’? I love you. You’re my Doctor.” The soft smile on her face was all he needed to see, to remind him that this wasn’t a dream or a hallucination.   
  
“I know. I’m sorry I ran away tonight. Old habits, you know.” The Doctor hoped she’d understand, and judging by the way she placed a palm over his singular heart, Rose did. “I won’t run anymore.”   
  
“Promise?”   
  
“Cross my heart.” The Doctor whispered softly, before he gave into his need to taste her lips, wincing internally at the salt from her tears on them. “Oh, Rose. I’m sorry I made you cry-“   
  
“Shut up.” Rose mumbled, and the Doctor obeyed for once. He let himself go, let the walls he’d kept in place so long crumble as their tongues brushed briefly. “and dance with me.” She hummed, and he followed her willingly as Rose broke away to trail her lips down his jaw just as she had earlier.   
  
“You want moves. I’ll show you moves.” The Doctor groaned, as he did his best to impersonate his old voice. Giving in to what he’d wanted to do for years, he slid her shirt up, sighing as she pulled back enough to toss it aside and lie back against her pillows. “Blimey, you look beautiful.” He had never let himself actually admire her bare body before, the few times he’d seen her naked or had to treat her. Now he did, and it was better than he’d ever fantasized.   
  
“Considering?” Rose’s breathless tease was expected, and the Doctor smiled as he felt himself surge to full attention.   
  
“Considering nothing. I meant it then, and I mean it now. You’re absolutely beautiful.” He stood only long enough to relieve himself of his own pajamas and preen in excitement as Rose’s gaze zeroed in on his prominent erection and groan in approval. “So I pass inspection?” He chuckled, pouncing between her legs to tug at her waistband. The Doctor was a bit disoriented by how hard, pun intended, it was to focus while aroused now. When he was full Time Lord, he’d just been reduced to a handful of thoughts instead of thirty or forty. Now he had one, make love to Rose. It was a brilliant line of thought.   
  
“Oh yeah.” Rose grabbed for his shoulders, and he lowered himself over her without hesitation. The feeling of her skin against his, finally, was wondrous. The kiss was deep, more intense than any they’d ever shared, and it made his head swim in hazy thoughts. Words were forgotten, as they lost themselves to touch, to exploring the other’s body, and he groaned as he closed his lips over her right breast and earned himself a soft keen of delight.   
  
The Doctor slid his hand down her body, memorizing the satin path, which spots made his Rose jerk or gasp or giggle, as he switched to her left breast and she gasped. Then he felt her trimmed curls, already wet, ready for him, and he lifted his head to watch as she tossed her head back and dug her nails into his arms with a moan. “You’re so perfect, my Rose.” He murmured, finding that hooded bud with his fingers and pressing a circle against it.   
  
“Need you, Doctor. Please.” She pulled up on his elbow, and he couldn’t deny her a thing.   
  
“You have me, forever.” He swore, to himself as much as her, and braced himself on one arm as he positioned himself at her dripping center. Rose’s legs curled around his waist as she fluttered her eyes open, meeting his gaze, and he slid into her, stealing her moan of delight with his lips and mingling it with his own groan.   
  
It was better, a thousand times more so, than he’d ever fantasized. This body had been formed from her kiss, from her love, and the perfection at which they fit spoke the truth of that. Rose was alive under him, arching, trembling, and rocking up to meet his every thrust with as much hunger and yearning as he was giving her. The Doctor was lost in her, in her love, in her trust and acceptance. Her tight, velvet, wet heat was bliss as it Sheathed him. He just needed one more thing, and his fingers sought her temples before he could register it.   
  
“Do it, please.” Rose’s breathless request was the answer he needed, and the Doctor slipped into her mind just as he pulled back and rocked into her body. Now he was drowning in her.   
  
It was impossible to know where his pleasure ended and hers began. This was love. This was heaven. The Doctor was Rose’s, and Rose was the Doctor’s. She gave a soft cry under him, and it reverberated into his thoughts to mix with his own. Her mind met his with equal fervor, exploring, reassuring him that she was in nothing but infinite ecstasy. He’d never felt anything so utterly perfect as that moment, as their entire beings winding together in joy and love and pleasure.   
  
Then he felt Rose glowing, the combined mental and physical pleasures stimulating her in ways she’d never experienced. The Doctor fed that glow, pouring in all the unspoken emotions he’d been to afraid to reveal before, ones he could now, and the freedom it brought, the absolute truth that she felt the same, that she wanted him, this him, the human him, was soul deep. He thought, for a moment, that they had somehow, but Rose exploded around him, beneath him, inside their minds, erasing his distracted surprise. The supernovas of light and love and ecstasy that it brought did it.   
  
The Doctor snapped, the final vestiges of his control exploded just as brilliantly, and he cried out into her lips, into her mind, pouring into her thoughts everything she had surrendered to him, as he felt his physical release surge out and fill her. He collapsed to her chest, panting for breath as she stroked his spine and pressed broken, breathless kisses to his neck. Her thoughts were thick and sweet with her affections.   
  
_I love him so much._  
  
The tickle of words in his mind was pristinely clear. They hadn’t, they couldn’t have.   
_  
__I hope he believes me. I did choose him. Why is he so quiet?_   
  
“Impossible!” The Doctor gasped, rolling off of Rose, making sure not a single iota of skin was touching.   
  
_What the fuck? Is he okay? Did I do something wrong?_ “Doctor?”   
  
“We bonded.” He couldn’t help but laugh. Rose rolled over, pushing up to look down at him in confusion and amusement. She reached out, but he stopped her with a thought.  
  
 _We bonded, love. Mentally. You can hear this. I know you can._  
  
“Holy-“ Rose yanked her hand from where it froze centimeters from his chest to touch her head. “I can hear you, but we aren’t touching!”   
  
“Come here!” The Doctor pulled her down to him, wrapping his impossible, brilliant, wonderful, amazing Rose into his arms. She snuggled into him, but her face and thoughts were awash in a mixture of confusion, love, and the afterglow of their lovemaking. “I didn’t think, since we’re human, that we could.”   
  
“Could what?”   
  
“Rose, when my people married. It wasn’t often for love. When it was, though, when truly, deeply, mutually loved each other, sharing thoughts while making love would cause a permanent bond.” The Doctor was giddy with this turn of events, because it meant she really loved him. She loved this him, the human him, just as much as he loved her.   
  
“So, we’re married?” Those amber eyes were full of wonder and awe, just as her thoughts were. There was no fear, no hesitancy, just his Rose accepting his ecstatic joy.  
  
“Emotionally, and mentally yes.” The Doctor let out a giggle before reaching out to touch her mind.   
  
_This couldn’t have happened before. This is what would have hurt you, but now. Oh, Rose. My Rose Tyler. You never cease to amaze me._ _  
_ _  
_ _Your thoughts tickle._ _  
_ _  
_ _So do yours._ _  
_ _  
_ _Stay with me tonight._ _  
_ _  
_ _Every night. I told you. I’m never running again_.   
  
All he got back was a wave of immeasurable happiness as Rose rushed forward and caught his lips in a fiery kiss. After a few minutes of enjoying how their thoughts swirled and danced as intricately as their lips and tongues, she broke free to smile down at him. “Mum’s gonna want us to have a proper, human wedding.”   
  
“Do I have to wear a tux?” The Doctor groaned, earning him a playful slap to his chest. “Nothing good ever happens when I wear one.”   
  
“Doctor, it wouldn’t be us if aliens or daleks or cybermen didn’t crash our wedding.”  
  
“We wouldn’t even have to fight. You’re mum would be so pissed she’d take care of it for us.” He chuckled, picturing Jackie attacking a Dalek with her heels. The image changed, tinged with Rose’s sweet mental flavor, to Jackie hurling a cake knife straight into the eyestalk. “Exactly.” He snorted.   
  
_What’s this?_ _  
_  
Rose’s mental touch was stroking the only door his mind had erected. It had been there so long, it hadn’t opened in their passionate joining.  
  
 _Open it._ _  
_ _  
_ _Are you sure?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Open it, Rose. I want you to see._   
  
He poured as much assurance, as much love and trust as he could convey into her mind. The door clicked open, and the Doctor winced habitually as the Gallifreyan words tumbled out as surrounded their joined minds. Rose froze in his arms, and he opened his eyes to see hers blow wide in shock, fear, bafflement, and finally love filled wonder and awe. “My name, Rose. Now you know. You know all I am.”   
  
“You’re so beautiful.” A tear glistened on her cheek as she caressed his face. He relaxed at her words, and the centuries of fear and doubt, of self loathing, of running dissipated with that single drop of love trailing down her skin. “You’re still my Doctor. You’ll always be my Doctor.”   
  
_Forever?_ _  
_ _  
_ _That’s what I promised, remember?_ _  
_ _  
_ _I never forgot._ _  
_ _  
_ _Neither did I._ __  
  
The Doctor pulled the blankets up over them, cradling his future to his chest. For the first time in decades, he closed his eyes and wasn’t greeted by a box, in a barn, with the universe burning around him. He was walking amongst the cosmos, with Rose clutching his hand, with stars in her eyes and hair.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
